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The Fools Reef ... The final 2.5 gallon long pico


TheRope

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9 hours ago, PieMan2k said:

In my experience Acans will change color depending on the lighting conditions. Under radions that my LFS uses over their frag tanks my frag was deep red and green with sky blue accents  to a now purple and green with gold accents. My water is the exact same as theirs, same salt, dosing, and roughly same flow. If the coral is happy and is eating anytime you feed it then it should be fine.

Thanks for your input! I figured that was the case, personally im not one of those who cares too much about color, i just want my corals to be healthy! My goal for this jar is not beauty as much as it is health and full growth as well as complete take over by the corals. Because for me thats what makes a tank beautiful, you can have the nicest corals but if they arent healthy and growing quickly and filling everything in then it aint a real controlled mini ecosystem. ?

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I lied.

I made another update. I changed the method of flow from straight tube to an airstone, and so far im loving the visual aspect of it and the corals are loving the change of flow. 

Heres the update video! Check it out! 

 

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8 hours ago, TheRope said:

I lied.

I made another update. I changed the method of flow from straight tube to an airstone, and so far im loving the visual aspect of it and the corals are loving the change of flow. 

Heres the update video! Check it out! 

 

Interesting, what sort of air stone did you use?

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5 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

Interesting, what sort of air stone did you use?

(P.s the price is for a four pack) 

 

Also my zoas werent doing so good, so i did an iodine dip for 5 mins, as to try and fix them up. They started opening up already well see how it goes. Ive fallen in love with mushrooms. So if they end up dying off... im getting more mushrooms. 

Screenshot_2017-09-25-05-50-13.png

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2 hours ago, TheRope said:

(P.s the price is for a four pack) 

 

Also my zoas werent doing so good, so i did an iodine dip for 5 mins, as to try and fix them up. They started opening up already well see how it goes. Ive fallen in love with mushrooms. So if they end up dying off... im getting more mushrooms. 

Screenshot_2017-09-25-05-50-13.png

That's got a nice big surface area! Be interesting to see how your tank likes it as most run without airstone.

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7 hours ago, Lula_Mae said:

That's got a nice big surface area! Be interesting to see how your tank likes it as most run without airstone.

YUP! I did it mostly for the clove polyps the big bubbles were too agressive and they wouldnt stand up if they were too far from the flow, like this they poke right up, and its basically the same flow throughout the tank. I just hope it doesnt remove too much water as to mess up the specific gravity, by splashing it all up against the lid ... well see, ive been testing s.g everyday and it hasnt changed yet. Well see when we get closer to water change at the end of the week

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So this jar is teeming with life. Among the billion copepods, amphipods, featherdusters, I spotted a red amphipod, a red bristle worm and what i think may be a fire worm, i wanted to take out the worms but they retreated underneath corals -_- i hope they dont get too big and hurt anything, also saw 3 little bubbles of bubble algae on my rhodactis frags rock. Will be peroxiding that tonight and at the same time propagate the red coralline from that same rock.

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On 25/09/2017 at 8:03 AM, Lula_Mae said:

That's got a nice big surface area! Be interesting to see how your tank likes it as most run without airstone.

So after battling myself for a little bit due to the loss of water and raise in salinity the airstone causes, i decided to switch back to the straight pipe bubble. I really did not like the aggressive pull that the straight pipe bubbles created, the flow isnt appealing and it jolts all my corals repeatedly (lifting then pushing them down as opposed to a smooth semi constant flow in one direction). So i changed the location of my airstone and added a little thin plastic modification to catch the bubble popped eater droplets and return them to the tank! (Well see how this goes) 

 

 

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3 hours ago, TheRope said:

 

So after battling myself for a little bit due to the loss of water and raise in salinity the airstone causes, i decided to switch back to the straight pipe bubble. I really did not like the aggressive pull that the straight pipe bubbles created, the flow isnt appealing and it jolts all my corals repeatedly (lifting then pushing them down as opposed to a smooth semi constant flow in one direction). So i changed the location of my airstone and added a little thin plastic modification to catch the bubble popped eater droplets and return them to the tank! (Well see how this goes) 

 

 

Bummer!  You don't run yours sealed up, do you?  A lot do that to prevent evap (or reduce it).  I believe Natalia has some plastic tubing run around the rim with a section cut out for the cords, and the lid goes on top of that.

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26 minutes ago, Lula_Mae said:

Bummer!  You don't run yours sealed up, do you?  A lot do that to prevent evap (or reduce it).  I believe Natalia has some plastic tubing run around the rim with a section cut out for the cords, and the lid goes on top of that.

Actually i do have it sealed, but the water penetrates the seal by jumping to the lid and slipping down going into the slight imperfections as shown: 

(I run it on too and bottom) 

1506815328608-1923809447.jpg

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looking good!  B)

 

btw,  what bulb did you switch over to?

 

also, are you still using the same air stone or did you get a smaller one? did you consider getting an adjustable valve so you can control the air flow?

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Thanks! The light i switched to is a par 38 27 watt led 6 blues and 3 whites ( it kinda sucks but i added a blue plastic sheet infront to assist the coloration and dim it a bit seeing i cant alter the placement too much.

 

Same air stone, i switched its placement so allow for maximum usage of space for my corals. I do indeed have an adjustable valve the only problem is that due to the rockwork, if the flow isnt powerful at the back, it really wont do much at the front, but so far so good with my modifications!

Heres the new bulb

Screenshot_2017-10-03-15-42-19.png

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So everything is growing and my acans got their color back, my zoas died off because i messed with them too much so i threw em out before they decided to melt away or release any intwanted stuff in the water. 

 

Anyways, this is the final placement of coral in this lil jar (acclimated the hammer to the lights and brought him to the middle section, now we wait and see how things grow in :)

 

 

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8 hours ago, TheRope said:

So everything is growing and my acans got their color back, my zoas died off because i messed with them too much so i threw em out before they decided to melt away or release any intwanted stuff in the water. 

 

Anyways, this is the final placement of coral in this lil jar (acclimated the hammer to the lights and brought him to the middle section, now we wait and see how things grow in :)

 

 

When you say the zoas died off, what do you mean?  Sometimes if they're mad they will stay closed for weeks at a time, but then open up again.  Is this what they did?

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Im pretty sure they bleached, and faded away, i also messed with them too much thinking maybe there was a tiny pest on them so i iodine dipped them, i was down to two polyps and they were melting too... it was a consequence of putting them too high in the tank with a very short light acclimation :/ at the time the light i was using was close and very strong, which is why i switched...

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My absolute favorite part of the pico build, is the easy water changes. I set up my water a day before, check parameters until its perfect and then siphon out the water and drop in the new stuff. Process takes me 20 minutes flat. 

20171008_101535.jpg

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There are 11 new clove polyp polyps... And the hammer is growing and possibly splitting soon. 
Everything is growing insanely fast
10 polyps on my acan 
11 polyps on my christmas 
My discosomas have doubled or even trippled in size...

IMG_20171014_102017_987.jpg

IMG_20171014_102017_986.jpg

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Hey everyone! So i changed the placement of both my favia corals (towards the bottom of the tank) to promote growth seeing that theyre one of the SLOWEST growing corals! This cleared up quite a bit of space in there for some more coral ;);)

So with some help i overcame my fear of SPS and i find that they add a great aspect to picos by filling up the empty water space and add a different look! So this saturday im gonna pick up a frag or two of montipora digitata! 

 

I will also give my go again at zoanthids, because the last ones went through the brunt of the first stages of my tank and got wrecked by that first bulb which was way too strong! 

 

Ive got coral rx coming in the mail to help with the de-pesting o the montis and ive got ANOTHER new bulb coming in! Cant wait!

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